Price v. Starbucks Corp., 192 Cal. App. 4th 1136 (2011)

Drake Price worked as an entry-level Starbucks barista for approximately 13 shifts before he was fired. Following his termination, he sued Starbucks on behalf of himself and a putative class of employees seeking to recover unpaid wages, penalties and damages for Starbucks’ alleged failure to timely pay him wages upon termination, failure to pay an additional hour of reporting time pay on the day he was fired and failure to issue a wage statement that complied with the Labor Code. Starbucks successfully demurred to the wage-statement claim on the ground that Drake had failed to allege any injury arising from the allegedly non-compliant wage statement, and it successfully moved to strike the allegations concerning the alleged failure to timely pay final wages because Price admitted in the complaint that he was paid his final wages on the day his employment was terminated. Finally, the trial court dismissed on summary judgment Price’s claim seeking reporting-time pay and penalties based on Starbucks’ paying him for only two hours instead of 3.3 hours (the average number of hours of his scheduled shifts) on the ground that “if an employee is not scheduled to work or does not work his usual shift, but must report to work for a meeting, the employee falls into the regulatory category of those employees called to work on their day off for a scheduled meeting” and who receive a two-hour minimum payment. The trial court also dismissed the derivative claims for violation of the Unfair Competition Law and the Private Attorneys General Act. The Court of Appeal affirmed dismissal of all claims.